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This book, now in its second edition, examines youth citizenship and activism in the twenty-first century. When young people are encouraged to enact active citizenship through education and popular culture, and yet also risk arrest when engaged in certain forms of dissent, how do we account for the contradiction? Kennelly gets to the center of these issues as she explores the challenges of being young and politically engaged. In the new edition, she brings her original rich ethnography of young activists organizing across Canada into conversation with the past decade's burgeoning literature on youth activism and the major youth-led movements that have occurred since the first edition was published, including Black Lives Matter and Student Climate Strikes. The book also features a foreword written by prominent scholar of democratic education Dr. Joel Westheimer, as well as an afterword penned by emerging scholar and young activist Dr. Cihan Erdal.
List of contents
1.Understanding youth political engagement: youth citizenship as governance.- 2. Constructing the good youth citizen: a history of the present.- 3. Good citizen/bad activist: the cultural role of the state in youth political participation.- 4. Class exclusions, racialized identities: the symbolic economy of youth activism.- 5. Becoming actors: agency and youth activist subcultures.- 6. Conclusions citizen youth and implications for social change.
About the author
Jacqueline Kennelly is Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, as well as Director of the Centre for Urban Youth Research (CUYR) at Carleton University, Canada. Her current research focuses on activist and homeless young people's experiences of democracy, citizenship, and public life; schools as sites of youth homelessness prevention; and experiences of young people who have left homelessness and are now living in diverse forms of affordable housing.
Summary
This book, now in its second edition, examines youth citizenship and activism in the twenty-first century. When young people are encouraged to enact ‘active citizenship’ through education and popular culture, and yet also risk arrest when engaged in certain forms of dissent, how do we account for the contradiction? Kennelly gets to the center of these issues as she explores the challenges of being young and politically engaged. In the new edition, she brings her original rich ethnography of young activists organizing across Canada into conversation with the past decade's burgeoning literature on youth activism and the major youth-led movements that have occurred since the first edition was published, including Black Lives Matter and Student Climate Strikes. The book also features a foreword written by prominent scholar of democratic education Dr. Joel Westheimer, as well as an afterword penned by emerging scholar and young activist Dr. Cihan Erdal.
